


Memoirs of Fire

by Zelderon



Category: Adventure Time, Steven Universe (Cartoon), World War Z - Max Brooks
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-04 01:31:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6635500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelderon/pseuds/Zelderon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a collection of short stories written in the interview style of World War Z. The characters are all from Adventure Time and Steven Universe, but they're all normal humans without any magic powers. </p><p>Each story can be read on its own but they also have intertwining elements, so if you only like AT or SU but not both, you can skip whatever stories you want. Some characters will have multiple chapters (just like in the actual WWZ novel --- I'm trying to be as faithful to the original book as possible). I'm open to character requests.</p><p>New update (Also first STEVEN UNIVERSE chapter): Amethyst</p><p>"So my parent’s had already used up one of their chances at a son and only had one left. Of course they wouldn’t want to waste it on a runt like me. I used to fantasize about tracking down my “long lost sister” but she’s probably dead. Can you believe that China used to have a population of almost 1.4 billion people? Now it can’t be more than 300 million. Beijing is practically a ghost town compared to when I was a child."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Starchy 1

NORTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

[Bill “Starchy” Starchman lives in an abandoned ranger station about 30 miles outside of the old Research Triangle Area. The station itself is at the top of 50 foot platform: a fire lookout post before the war and an ideal sanctuary during the dark years. Mr. Starchman’s voice crackles over my walkie talkie, guiding me through a veritable minefield of bear traps, pitfall traps and improvised explosives as I make my way to his home. Mr. Starchman meets me at the bottom of the stairs and uses a battered metal detecting wand to search me for weapons. Once he’s satisfied that the only thing I have with me is my tape recorder, he allows me to follow him up the stairs to his isolated home.]

You ever see those zombie movies from before the war? You know, the ones by that George Romeo feller. They always show the Z’s moaning and hobbling around cemeteries, but when the dead actually started coming back to life Starchy’s old graveyard was one of the safest places to be. It was a couple miles outside of the city and the whole place was surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence to keep out hungry deer. Darn things liked to get into the flowers people put by the graves and they tore up the lawn somethin’ fierce. Starchy even added some barbed wire for good measure. Starchy hated seeing them ruin all the work Starchy did to make Starhy’s graveyard look presentable. 

Thing is, the Z’s reanimated long before they ever got to Starchy. If they died at home, usually the family would call 911 and then after the ambulance arrived and the medics and police finished questioning family members they’d get taken to some hospital so that someone with a pretty little degree could officially say they were dead. Think about, most Z’s reanimate within 3 hours, longest Starchy’s heard is 8. How many coroners and their technicians do you think died before everyone knew the dead were getting back up to eat the living?

In those early days, the closest Starchy ever got to one of them was this one old couple that showed up with bullet holes in their heads. Police claimed it was a murder suicide; husband put two rounds through the wife’s chest and one through her head and then offs himself. The strangest thing to me was the husband had this big chunk of flesh missing from his right forearm, even had some tooth embedded in it. Looked like some rabid animal had just tore into it. Luckily Starchy was able to cover it in the suit the daughter brought for him. The bullet holes weren’t too hard to fix with enough makeup, putty and ingenuity. Starchy figures he must’ve just been using 0.22’s. What really spooked me was the wife had blood all over her mouth was missing one of her teeth. 

_Do you think the wife may have been infected with the Solanum virus?_

The what? Oh, you mean the Z-virus. Yeah, of course, what else could it have been? Folks don’t just go chomping on their wives and husbands for no reason. The way Starchy sees it is the wife gets infected through something minor, maybe a cut or one of those black market Chinaman organ transplants. She gets a fever and thinks she can just sleep it off at home. The husband gets back from work or something and get jumped by her. He runs into the bedroom and grabs his gun from his nightstand and threatens to shoot his wife if she does stop. Gets her good in the chest and manages a lucky head shot and then offs himself from the guilt.

Or maybe he already knew what was happening and killed himself before he could turn. But Starchy doubts it. So many people didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. The government sure did a good job of hushing up all the small outbreaks in the beginning. Who knows how many lives could’ve been saved if the FBI had just told the American people what really was happening? Heck, they were probably the ones who started the whole thing. That’s why Starchy started his radio show. Starchy knew that those morons in Washington couldn’t be trusted to protect Americans, so Starchy took matters into my hands. Starchy told the American people what they needed to know to survive. Starchy taught them how to fight back against the Z’s. 


	2. Hunson Abadeer 1

HAVANA, CUBA

[A servant greets me when I arrive at Hunson Abadeer’s estate. Even by prewar standards his mansion is massive, with an imposing stone wall encircling the entire property. Heavily armed guards patrol the grounds, carrying enough firepower to take over a small country. Some would argue it was a bit over-kill for one of the most peaceful and prosperous nations after the war. I am taken directly to Mr. Abadeer’s study, where he is writing a letter. He looks up at me about 15 minutes after I sat down and tucks the letter into one of the drawers in his mahogany desks.]

Who would’ve dreamed that Cuba would become an economic powerhouse in our lifetime? Before the war they still had food rations; now they have they the best stocked grocery stores of any country in our hemisphere. Can you imagine that? Before the war, when Americans were lining up for the latest iPhones, they were lining up for toilet paper. The arms industry here has been very good to me lately, too. I just wrote a letter to the President to agree to another five year contract to supply his army with Nightosphere Light Carbines, far superior to those SIRs the US government is handing out. It’s a shame I can’t do business there, but it’s of little concern to me. Half of Europe and Asia are buying my guns. I’ve even opened up plants in Germany and Japan.

I sometimes do miss doing business in America. It was so easy. Even with all the shootings before the war, the government never even came close to putting up any restrictions on the gun industry. Oh sure, there was always the junior senator here and there who had it in their mind that they were going to be the ones to stop gun violence in America, but if there’s anything I’ve learned is that you can buy anything with money. The best part was, our sales actually went up every time there was a shooting. Can you imagine that? Even when all those kids at that elementary school got killed, our sales were as good as ever. It’s like if Chipotle sales had gone up every time they had a Salmonella incident.

Everyone thought that the president was always on the verge of taking their guns away. Our marketing department made sure of that. They were the real geniuses.

_Were they the ones to come up with the Z Destroyer 9000?_

Oh, that was actually my idea. When all the stories were coming out about people going crazy and eating other people, every man and woman wanted to get their hands on some firepower. Even with Phalanx, there’s nothing like a military-grade assault rifle to make you feel safe and secure. Slap the number “9000” behind anything and it’s guaranteed to sell. The gun itself was like something out of a wannabe separatist militia man’s wet dream. It looked like a M249 had a baby with an AK47 and fired more than a thousand rounds per minute. We even threw in a detachable under barrel grenade launcher just for kicks. No one cared that it weighed 20 pounds and could only be used with our special Nightosphere-brand bullets. People only cared that it looked like it would let them take down an army of zombies without ever having to leave their couches. We even got that redneck guy from that zombie TV show to sponsor it.

We made so much money during those early months when people just started hearing about African rabies and isolated incidents in little no name towns. Not as much as those Phalanx guys, but at least I don’t have to hide in Antarctica for the rest of my life. And thank god for that crazy guy with the radio show. He created so much delightful chaos and panic in the beginning that people were practically begging to buy my guns. Even gave the _Z Destroyer_ an endorsement based on his “vast knowledge and experience with firearms and military experience.” Pfff, I bet that guy never even made it through basic; I doubt they even let him through the initial psych eval. 

Hell, I’m sure that guy made a lot of people rich with his “expert advice” on survival skills and zombie fighting. I can’t believe there were so many people out there who were stupid enough to listen to him, but hey I can’t complain. Fear and stupidity are always good for business.

Did you know my wife is Cuban? She came over to the US on a raft made out inflated garbage bags and plywood when she was 5. She was such a firebrand, but you’d never think it if you saw her with our daughter. We met when she was interning at my company headquarters in Texas. The first time we ever spoke, she was chewing me out for deciding to move some of our factories to Mexico. Caught me right in the parking lot, didn’t care who I was. When my one of my bodyguards tried to grab her she knocked his lights out. _Abadeer chuckles._ It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. This tiny little woman in a light green dress sucker punching a 250 pound ex-marine right in the face.

_You weren’t afraid for your safety?_

Are you joking? Here, I’ll give you an inside scoop to help sell some copies of your little book. I usually like to keep this on the down low, but I’m feeling charitable today. I’ve been practicing Kenpo ever since I was old enough to walk. My master was the meanest bastard you’ll ever meet. Never used any protective equipment and made me train with wooden logs. A lot of the time I would practice until I blacked out and when I woke up, we’d train some more. Used a real BB gun when he was teaching me gun disarming techniques. I have to give it to him though, that crazy bastard made me into the man I am today. He probably saved my life too. Punching a zombie might not do much to them, but breaking a leg or elbow will by you enough time to either get away or get a good head shot. Plus there were plenty of humans out there during the war to keep my skills sharp.

Anyways, one thing led to another, and I agreed not to move the factories if she agreed to have a drink with me. By that time I had her pinned to the ground, and you know what she did? She spat right in my face. _Abadeer laughs again._ I won’t tell you what I had to do to eventually convince her to give me a chance, but it was definitely worth it. Two years later we were married and expecting our first child.

_When did you decide to come to Cuba?_

_Abadeer pauses and looks at a picture frame on his desk. I almost thought he wasn’t going to answer me before he starts speaking again._ My wife left me a couple months before the first stories about outbreaks in the US started coming out. She took Marceline with her. I had all my best people on the case trying to track the two of them down, but Marissa was one clever woman. I suppose that’s why I fell in love with her. By the time they tracked down her RV deep in the Appalachians, she was long gone. I fired the lot of them. How hard was it to track down one woman and her seven year old daughter? 

_Mr. Abadeer sighs and looks at the framed paintings on the wall to his right._

I hired a retired police sketch artist and one of the best painters on the island to do those. I still have real photos of them, but who knows what my little Marcy looks like now. I can’t even remember how much money I’ve spent, how many people I’ve hired to track her down. I would do anything to get her back. Every day I regret not spending more time at home with her and her mother. I know I spent more time at the office than I should have, worked too many late nights, but I always thought there’d be more time. 

You know, my little Marcy loved to sing. Had a voice just like her mother’s. _Mr. Abadeer looks out the window._

I can’t remember what she sounded like anymore.

 


	3. Amethyst 1

BEIJING, CHINA

[ _Beijing is still recovering from the devastation of two simultaneous wars. The once most populous nation on earth is thought to be the location of the first cases of Solanum, but the newly elected president vehemently denies this. I take a dirty bus past the 6th Ring Road and find myself in a neighbor of dusty streets, dilapidated apartment buildings and the pungent smell of human waste. Children play in the streets while stray dogs watch street vendors with hungry eyes. Di Zijing meets me at one of Beijing’s ubiquitous outdoor barbeque restaurants (“restaurant” might be a generous term for the small collection of plastic tables and chairs and a lone tiny girl). As per our agreement, I buy Ms. Di 2 dozen meat kebabs before we begin._ ]

You can call me “Amethyst.” That’s what my name means in English and I know a lot of foreigners have trouble with _pinyin._ I hope you don’t mind eating meat on a stick. I have a friend who won’t even touch street food here, not even before the war. She says that even before the war, street vendors used rat instead of pork or beef in their dishes. She’s from really far away, Xinjiang, and apparently her hometown is better in every conceivable way than this city. _Amethyst rolls her eyes_. I love Beijing, it was where I was born and raised. Also in my opinion, meat is meat, I’m not too picky about where it comes from. 

My parents weren’t from Beijing though. They came here from their tiny village in Hunan to work in one of the factories and make a little money to send home. After they had me, there wasn’t really anyone to look after me. Both sets of my grandparents were back in their home village and there’s no way they could afford healthcare in the city so they stayed there. Of course they didn’t have _hukou_ s* for Beijing, so no school for me. I don’t think they even filed paperwork to register me as an actual person, I think they were holding out for a son, didn’t want to waste their only child slot on a girl. As far as the government was probably concerned, I didn’t exist. Of course when the dead started rising, the government draft wasn’t too picky about that sort of thing. 

_*A hukou was a proof of registration that allowed Chinese citizens to access government resources such as schools and healthcare only in their home provinces._

_But I thought that families with one daughter were allowed to have a second child?_

_Amethyst looks at the ground._ I did have an older sister once. I can’t remember her but my mom sometimes talked about her. I’ve also seen her birth certificate. It’s a shame she was eight years older than me, or else I could’ve used her ID card to maybe at least go to that nonprofit migrant worker school near my old house. My mom said she just disappeared one day. Probably kidnapped and sold to some dumb farmer to be his wife*.

_*The one child policy led to an imbalance in the male to female ratio so many men were forced to buy kidnapped brides from various criminal organizations._

So my parent’s had already used up one of their chances at a son and only had one left. Of course they wouldn’t want to waste it on a runt like me. I used to fantasize about tracking down my “long lost sister” but she’s probably dead. Can you believe that China used to have a population of almost 1.4 billion people? Now it can’t be more than 300 million. Beijing is practically a ghost town compared to when I was a child. 

_How old were you when the first outbreaks hit Beijing?_

I think I was probably 8 years old. When everything first started, the government was telling us they were just mobilizing troops to react to attacks made by Taiwan. They were rounding up “enemies of the state” and that was why people kept disappearing. No one thought to ask any questions or look deeper into their statements. And who could blame them? The Communist government had always been making people disappear, why would these cases be any different? 

At some point we couldn’t get through anymore to my parents’ home village. The last thing they heard was a bit of gossip about how Old Mister Li’s son had been bitten by a madman who had to be wrestled to the ground and tied up by 4 other men in the village. My father was really worried and decided to buy a train ticket home to check on his family and my mother’s. My parents fought a lot about that. Normally we only went home once a year, during New Years. My mother thought it was a waste of money, that it was just a faulty phone line that was causing the issues, a matter that would be fixed whenever the village chief and committee members decided to get off their corrupt lazy asses. 

But my father was a stubborn man. Perhaps it was because he was 10 years older than my mother and had actually lived through the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and the ripples of the disastrous Great Leap Forward. Maybe he could tell that something was different this time. That being forced to eat grass and tree bark would be the least of our people’s problems. Whatever it was that compelled him to go back at the risk of losing his job and livelihood doesn’t really matter in the end I guess. I never saw him again after he left for the train station.

My mother continued working and pretending that nothing was wrong. Each night we’d eat our rice with pickled vegetables, and maybe an egg or a bit of meat if we were lucky, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I spent most of my days playing in the streets with the kids around my neighborhood. There were plenty of rumors flying around about what was really going on in our country. The most popular stories were that China was mobilizing troops to either finally crush the Japanese dogs who had raped our soil in World War 2 or to finally strike against the Americans who had been nipping at our Southern Islands. There was one new kid whose parents had just recently moved to _Daxing_ *. He always liked to stand with a wall to his back and never stayed outside past dark. The other boys like to tease him for being a coward and “acting like a girl,” but I could see a hollowness in his eyes. 

* _Daxing_ is a less affluent district within _Beijing_.

He claimed that he had seen monsters back in his home village that looked like humans but ate every living thing in sight. He said that if you were bitten by one, you would eventually die and then turn into one of the horrors. That was what he claimed the government was trying to hide from its people. He told us of how he witness his older brother and his grandfather get disemboweled an devoured by a crowd of them. How he saw his brother cut off one of the monster’s arms and stab it through the heart with his scythe's blade. How the monster did not slow down its assault for a second. His parents thought Beijing would be safe because it was the seat of government. They were able to escape and hide when the nondescript government troops came into the village and exterminated every man, woman, and child, dead or alive. 

We all nervously laughed at his claims. Who could believe such wild lies? We called him a stupid _nongmin_ who wasn’t cultured like those of us who had lived in the city all of our lives. Pretty soon after he came, government troops and special police started going into factories and neighborhoods where migrant workers tended to live and started forcing people out of the city. They didn’t care whether you had legal work papers or not. No _hukou_ no stay. The rest of China either didn’t notice or didn’t care, as usual. We were expendable, to be used and then thrown away. 


End file.
